AISD takes classes online

Up to 50 Amarillo Independent School District students can take government and economics classes online this summer in the pilot program for Amarillo On-line School.

Students with permission from their high school counselor can pay a $75 summer school fee and get one credit out of the way during the summer without the traditional walls and bells of summer school.

Government and economics are offered at high school for free, but students with extracurricular activities or other school-day requirements such as athletics, band or calculus can opt to pay for the flexibility of online classes, said Jim Rutledge, project director and instructional technology facilitator for the Palo Duro Cluster.

"We're doing this to meet student needs," he said. "With increasing graduation requirements, more extracurricular activities and more students working, some students can't get it all in."

Students who do not have a computer or cannot pay the fee can still register for an online class, Rutledge said. Students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches can get the tuition waived, and students without a computer can use the computers in the library at Amarillo College for their online coursework.

Rutledge said other businesses are working toward donating computers to students for use in their homes during the semester.

Curriculum for the classes comes from Class.com, an online school program out of Nebraska. Rutledge said the company has worked with several Texas schools, including many in the Houston area.

The district's initial cost for online classes is about $300 for each student, but will decrease as the program expands to include more students and more courses, Rutledge said. Eventually, the cost of the program will be balanced by tuition paid by the students.

Rutledge said the national average for tuition in one online class is $295 per student.

Jo Ann Grantham, an economics teacher at Amarillo High, will teach the online economics class this summer. She said she applied for the online teacher position because it was new, different and exciting.

"It keeps you better at what you do if you change things up some times," she said.

Grantham, a 20-year teacher, said she never teaches summer school, but with this she can go on vacation and stay in touch with her online students.

Rutledge, Grantham and Caprock government teacher Jeff Frazer will train this April on the Class.com system.